Duckworth's Kitchen & Taphouse Tasting
I've been hearing great things about Duckworth's Kitchen & Taphouse, so when I got notice that our next Yelp Elite event would be there I was SUPER excited. For the event, we would be visiting their Park Rd location, which according to the manager, Ken, is the primary location for testing new dishes. Finding the restaurant was easy, but the parking area in front of the restaurant is a bit small. It's not a problem, however, as there is a large shopping plaza behind Duckworth's that you can easily find parking in. Upon entering, I noticed the decor was very sleek yet gave a nice casual vibe that invites a good time. Before we started trying dishes, the manager gave a bit information about Duckworth's and the direction that they are headed in quality over quantity. So what did we eat?!?!
Build Your Own Salad
Duckworth's let us first try their new salad option. Customers can customize their salad now, but for us they went ahead and prepared a delicious combination of quinoa, kohlrabi, edamame, bleu cheese crumbles, corn, and hearts & hearts served with a champagne vinaigrette. The presentation was beautiful and very colorful. All of the ingredients tasted fresh and it was a good way to start out the meal. The vinaigrette also pared really well with this salad and was balanced. Customers can definitely look forward to the new build your own salad options.
Nashville Hot Chicken
So this was my first time having Nashville Hot Chicken and I feel like I've been missing out! I can't compare it to Hot Chicken in Nashville or any other place since this was my first taste of the dish, but it was tasty. I'm a fan, and you like your chicken with a some 'kick', you will be also. I thought the flavor here was great, and the heat came through really well at the end of each bite. Many dishes that are marketed as spicy aren't, but I can say I did get a bit of spice here which was nice. It's not overly, mouth on fire spicy, but for me it had the right balance. I'll be going back to get the fully sandwich!
Pretzel Rolls
Now, I'm not a huge bread fan. In fact, most of the time I skip the complimentary bread options served at many restaurants as I typically just want to get to the real food. With that being said, these were absolutely amazing! This was the surprise of the night for me. They are served with a Sierra Nevada beer mustard, which was outstanding even thought I'm not a big mustard fan typically either. The rolls themselves were baked with a perfect pretzel crust outside and had the softness of of a roll right out of the oven on the inside. The mustard was also perfectly balanced without being too overbearing. I loved the rolls!
Taphouse Burger
You can't go wrong with a good burger, and they do them well at Duckworth's. The Taphouse burger comes with jalapeno bacon, swiss cheese, roasted garlic mayo, and their signature Taphouse sauce(aka deliciousness). The Taphouse sauce went well on the burger, and I could have even used a little more of it. As you can see in the picture, the juices were already flowing from this tasty burger. I must say their fries were also really good. I love a good hand cut fry to pair with any burger! If you are in the mood for just a nice juice burger, you'll find it here.
The Impossible Burger
Here is where things got interesting - The semi-famous "Impossible" burger. The company that makes these boast that these look, taste, and have the same texture as meat so I definitely wanted to try a bite of this burger. The burger is a completely plant-based patty that you can even get cooked to your usual burger temperature(yes, a medium plant based burger is possible apparently). When you see it, you cannot tell any difference from this patty and a normal burger. It really does look just like a beef burger which is kind of mind blowing. The manager said he has even had some strict vegetarians send it back as it looks too similar to real beef, haha! When you bite into it, the texture is pretty close to beef, but not completely 100%. As far as the taste, if you eat meat on the daily, you can definitely tell it's not beef. It's not a bad taste, it's just a different one. It had a very slight after taste that a typical burger doesn't have, but it wasn't bad. Will I be replacing my actual beef with these? Nope! But I would say this is a great additional option for those who do not eat meat, but want something close to it.
So after eating all of that, I was definitely completely stuffed and can say I'll be adding Duckworth's to my list of common places around town. They have a good variety of menu items that can meet everyone's needs, all the while doing each of them really well. They recently knocked the menu down from almost 100 items to less than 50 to focus on quality, and it shows. See you soon, Duckworth's Kitchen & Taphouse!